twenty minutes, lying flesh side up in a flat dish, then trim off the
under side and edges neatly, removing rusty fat, strings, etc., and
cutting through the skin at the hock end. Turn over and remove the
skin--taking care not to tear away too much fat with it. Remove the ham
to a clean, deep dish, or bowl--the closer fitting the better, then pour
around it either sound claret, or sweet cider, till it stands half way
up the sides. Add a little tabasco or Worcester to the liquor, if high
flavors are approved. Then stick whole cloves in a lozenge pattern all
over the fat, sprinkle on thickly red and black pepper, and last of all,
sugar--brown sugar if to be had, but white will do.

Leave standing several hours, basting once or twice with the liquor in
the bowl. Take out, set on a rack in an agate pan, pour the liquor
underneath, and bake slowly one to two hours, according to size. Baste
every fifteen minutes, adding water as the liquor cooks away. Beware
scorching--the ham should be a beautiful speckly dark brown all over.
Let cool uncovered, and keep cool, but not on ice until eaten.

Drop a lump of ice in the boiling liquor unless the weather is
cold--then set it outside. As soon as the fat on top hardens take it
off, boil it fifteen minutes in clear water, chill, skim off, and
clarify by frying slices of raw potato in it. The spices will have sunk
to the bottom, and there will be no trace of their flavor in the fat.
Any boiling vegetable--cabbage, string beans, navy beans, greens in
general--may be cooked to advantage in the liquor. It also serves as an
excellent foundation for pea soup. Drain it off from the sediment,
reduce a trifle by quick boiling, then add the other things. Dumplings
of sound cornmeal, wet up stiff, shaped the size of an egg, and dropped
in the boiling liquor, furnish a luncheon dish cheap and appetizing.

Fried ham as Mammy made it is mostly a fragrant memory--only plutocrats
dare indulge in it these days. She cut thin slices from the juicy, thick
part of the ham, using a very sharp, clean knife. Then she trimmed away
the skin, and laid the slices in a clean, hot skillet--but not too hot.
In about a minute she flipped them over delicately, so as to sear the
other side. When enough fat had been tried out to bubble a bit, she
turned them again, then set the skillet off, deadened the coals beneath
it a little--put it back, and let the ham cook until tender through and
through. She never washed the